Sounds of a Grand Race

Conceptualizing supernatural ‘Vitra’ Paths as pre-modern sound-musical-spatial infrastructure

Abstract

This ethnomusicological, anthropological, and archaeomusicological study examines pre-modern conceptualizations of sound, ‘music’, and spatiality in northern Sweden before trains, electricity, gramophone, and radio arrived, through the lens of a specific body of material: mentions of sound and ‘music’ in recorded folklore accounts of the supernatural race known as the vitra and the ‘supernatural’ infrastructures known as vitra paths. The article introduces an extensive body of material – including both written records and sound recordings – from the northernmost land­scapes of Sweden, especially Lappland, Västerbotten, and Ångermanland, with particular emphasis on Lycksele and Degerfors parishes. According to folklore, the vitra lived underground, in the woods, inside the mountains, and outside human culture. They were encountered along the paths they traveled through in the landscape, and especially in auditory and musical experiences. Vitra beliefs are documented in oral descriptions and in Sámi vuole, Swedish herding tunes, and other tunes attributed to vitra. Vitra ‘music’ has been described as strong, beautiful, chromatic, and dis­sonant, and could be vocal or instrumental. This study addresses the pre-modern reception of sound and ‘music’ through theories of hearing/listening, soundscapes, and acoustemology. It offers new per­spectives on how people in the area studied have understood their sounding reality in relation to natural spaces, landscapes, and soundscapes. It presents an interpretation of the cul­tural meanings of vitra paths as an originally Sámi concept related to shamanism and Saivo, which mixed with Swedish and Finnish folk beliefs. The resulting transculturation was specific to the area and pro­duced the acoustemological and sound-musical-spatial infrastructure concept of vitra paths, which have been perceived – along with vitra sounds – as spatial framings of vitra areas. The study ends with a discussion of pre-modern conceptualizations of sound and ‘music’ before the modern con­cept of music was established in northern Sweden (and all of Western culture) with the advent of modernity.